


The Brain, within its Groove

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Doctors & Physicians, Engagement, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 14:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10336946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Jed turns his attention to an unconventional patient.





	

“I think there is something wrong with Major McBurney,” Mary said thoughtfully. 

It was perhaps the last remark Jed would have imagined her making as they sat in the parlor, her head nestled against his shoulder. She had come down the day before for the first time and he did not like to see how much it taxed her, but had told himself he must be patient and remember how severe her illness had been, how strenuous the journey and then, to be dosed day and night with the calomel… She was pale and far too drawn, but her eyes were bright and lucid and the hand he held was warm without any fever. He wanted to sit with her, contented as he had rarely been, and talk but not about the man who had hurt her so badly.

“Don’t bother yourself about him. He’s caused you enough trouble,” Jed said, stroking the back of her hand, touching the ring on her finger, the ring he had given her just a few days ago, unsure if it would fit. It suited her and so did the smile she’d given him when he offered it, with his promise and his sincere expression of his devotion, his abiding love for her. She had said yes without any tears and had whispered, “Do you always mean to be so solemn, Jedediah?” in his ear after he kissed her very gently on the mouth and her cheek. He’d chuckled at her words and that return of her old, teasing spirit and let his laughter be the only response.

“But we must, mustn’t we? For he’ll be there when we, when you return to Mansion House, and if he has some affliction…well, surely, you are the only physician capable of diagnosing him,” Mary said, pulling back to face him. He recognized that practical expression, the subtle insertion of praise to encourage him to her point, but he’d never before conversed with her in such a manner with her freshly washed hair a cloud of curls restrained only by a pair of combs at her temples, the loose neck of her dressing sacque revealing her throat, the arc of her clavicle.

“He’s a monster, malevolent, a coward! A sorry excuse for a Union officer,” he railed and she shook her head.

“No, or rather, perhaps he is those things, but why? My memory is not the best, the fever made it hard to recall all the details, but there was something odd in his eyes, something odd about him altogether, the way he spoke,” she said, pressing him to be the physician and not merely the lover. He thought of the man, the half-healed wound on his cheek and the way he had moved, jerkily, as if a marionette controlled poorly, and how his eyes darted to the left, how much sclera was revealed around the staring blue iris…

“An unusual precision in his speech and what he said was…off, wasn’t it? He spoke Russian to Nurse Hastings and me, as if we should know it, and he was so fearful of your illness, cowering in the corner,” Jed mused.

“When he touched me, his hands trembled,” Mary began but Jed interrupted, shocked at this new information, delivered by Mary without any fanfare, as if they had both known it, accepted it.

“He touched you? What do you mean—did he hurt you? God damn him!” 

“No, Jedediah, calm down! He, Major McBurney is a practitioner of phrenology, he only examined me, nothing else,” Mary explained. She laid a hand, the one with the sapphire ring, against his chest and he took a deep breath and tried to school his expression.

“He had no right,” he replied in a tight voice.

“You are correct and if I had not been ill, I think I should have said something, but my head ached dreadfully. I fainted,” she said. No one had told him this; Sister Isabella had only called for him when Mary shook with fever. He could not help imagining her on the floor of McBurney’s study, the man shouting for assistance, a physician trained unable to cope with the patient before him. If he had gone to her then, could he have done more for the typhoid? Would she have known it was him, lifting her up, cradling her in his arms?

“You did nothing wrong. I only wish I had known, had paid more attention,” he said, relaxing a little when he felt her lay her head back upon his shoulder, leaving her hand against his heart. He pushed back a chestnut curl and thought of silk, of that hair falling around them both.

“You might give it, him, your attention now. Before we are confronted with him again. To have a theory, a hypothesis, would make a difference, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“It might. It should,” he said, pausing to consider her words, her memories of the man and his own, the general circumstances. “There is something about him that reminds me of some patients I saw in Paris. They had strange symptoms, examinations that varied widely but were never benign, muscular rigidity and contortion, given to incomprehensible exclamations. Some thought they suffered from fever, others some spiritual crisis, but I wondered about an injury, obscure and invisible. Of course, these were all women, so perhaps it was only a condition a woman might suffer,” he said. There had been talk about McBurney and some damage, the man had started it himself, about his desire to return to battle after surviving a cannon-blast and the reason for his assignment to a more removed hospital and not the field. And that curious wound to his cheek, that wept but gave no sign of infection, a serous drainage that stained the bandage, that had puzzled Anne Hastings even as she tended it…

“How were they treated? Those patients?”

“There was no treatment. Only they were fed and given some exercise if they could manage it, a clean bed if they could not. They were not tied up, at least, nor beaten,” he said. It had not seemed like enough but it was so much more than they might have had.

“Did you have an idea? I think you must have, you always seem to. Some experiment?” It would be like this now, talking with her while he held her, her curiosity unleashed, everything allowed between them, such varied pleasure.

“I had thought about dosing them with morphine, but now, with my own experience behind me, I should not be so eager to expose them. To help them heal—perhaps there is some chemical, some natural agent missing to be replenished? Or within their sleep, some solution the brain itself might accomplish?” he said. More question than theory but each avenue beckoned him, to construct an adequate test and secure the patient’s cooperation.

“More observation would help, I imagine. It may be a consolation then after all, to find Major McBurney still ensconced at Mansion House—you may discover some detail that inspires you,” Mary said, yawning at the end. He felt how drowsy she had become, her body soft and loose against his, not erotic at all but drawing from him the greatest tenderness.

“You are the consolation, Mary. And you must return to your bed now, to your restorative sleep, so we may get you well enough to travel,” he said, standing and leaning to help her up, an arm around her. He felt her waver and tightened the arm around her.

“I should call for Aunt Agnes, if you won’t let me carry you,” he suggested, preferring the latter, though he knew she would demur.

“No, I can walk. You’re enough, all I need,” she said, her dark eyes full of trust and affection, the faintest glimmer of her ready wit.

**Author's Note:**

> MercuryGray brought up the idea of Jed diagnosing Clayton McBurney and I...ran with it? Jed is once again sort of a savant about neuropsychiatry, but at least I didn't let him come up with a new medicine or psychoanalysis this time. I'm intimating Jed studied with Charcot, even though the dates don't exactly line up. The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
